Awarua Communications Museum
Constitution Update
Current 2020 ACM Constitution Draft 2025 ACM Constitution
Working page to support sharing of a revision
of the Awarua Communications Museum (ACM) Constitution.
At the ACM AGM of 20 May 2025 it was identified that the Museum is required to revise its Constitution. The background to why we need to take this step, and how we are going about it is described below.
Background Information
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Why Change The ACM Constitution?
The Incorporated Societies Act 2022 was signed into law on 5 April 2022 to replace the previous 1908 Act. All Incorporated Societies must update their rules (constitution) to comply with the new law and apply for re-registration before April 2026 or be removed from the Incorporated Societies register.
New Zealand Companies Office (NZCO) guidance on this situation is online at.
https://is-register.companiesoffice.govt.nz/news-and-notices/update-april-2022-on-law-changes-for-incorporated-societies/
How Does The ACM Prepare Its New Constitution?
The NZCO has provided a 'constitution builder' tool online to help Incorporated Societies develop compliant constitutions. The Builder contains a multi-choice mix of Mandatory, Recommended and Optional categories and default text that Societies can use to prepare their new constitution. The ACM Constitution is based on another Society's draft Constitution that was prepared using the Builder.
Mandatory means that a category of information must be addressed in the Constitution, not that any default text has to be used. There are many additional categories addressed over what is in our existing Constitution - dispute procedures and definitions of words and phrases being examples.
The NZCO 'Next Step Advice
'Share your draft constitution with your society's members and committee (if applicable). Give them time to read and understand it. To adopt a new constitution, or amend an existing one, it will need to be approved by your members at a general meeting. The new or amended constitution only takes effect once it has been registered on the Register of Incorporated Societies.'
The ACM Planned Steps Are:
a. The Executive Committee prepares a draft Constitution.
[Step A is where we are now.]
b. Share the draft 2025 ACM constitution with its members. Receive comment, share discussion, agree the draft constitution be submitted for formal approval at a General Meeting.
c. At the General Meeting, present the agreed draft 2025 ACM Constitution to members for adoption. The ACM existing Constitution requires that at least 70% of the members voting at the AGM must agree the motion for the change to be approved.
d. The ACM Committee submit the new constitution to the NZCO and seek re-registration of the ACM as an Incorporated Society.
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About The Draft Constitution
1. Linked at the top of the page are two PDF documents. These are:
- Current 2020 ACM Constitution; and
- Draft Version 1, 2025 ACM Constitution
2. The current constitution is 7 pages long. The new draft constitution is 27 pages long. This is obviously a daunting amount of words to consider.
Therefore, the Committee has marked mandatory category headings with the mark [MANDATORY] and may include some additional comment to help speed up review of the new draft constitution.
Where there is a reference to or variation relating to ACM matters, the additional comment will assist, mostly by referencing the existing paragraphs from our current constitution.
Rex Johnson
ACM Webmaster
7 June 2025